Realme 1 – The Real Smartphone?

Oppo’s sub-brand Realme launched its first smartphone yesterday. The smartphone is named as RealMe 1. Oppo wants to make an impact in the online smartphone market with this sub-brand. We will talk about the smartphone in this article.

Design

The smartphone has a 6-inch Full HD+ (2160×1080 pixels) display. It has the 18:9 display. It has 84.8% display to body ration. The power button is present on the right side of the smartphone. The volume rocker buttons are present on the left side of the smartphone. At bottom, the device has a speaker, Micro-USB port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack (it’s good that the company has not removed the 3.5 mm Headphone Jack).

The sim tray is present on the right side of the smartphone. The smartphone has a dedicated micro-SD card slot, so you can use 2 sims and 1 micro-SD card simultaneously. The physical fingerprint sensor is not present on the smartphone. This is a little bit surprising. The company has given Face Unlock system for unlocking the device. The weight of the smartphone is 155g.

Processor

Realme 1 has MediaTek Helio P60 (4 Cortex A73 cores and 4 Cortex A53 cores) processor. The processor is good, it supports Dual VoLTE. Oppo has used the same processor in Oppo F7. It has Mali-G72 MP3 GPU. The processor is good for daily uses and you won’t get any major lag in daily uses. You might notice few frame-drops while playing some high-graphics oriented games.

The smartphone is powered by a 3410 mAh battery. The company has given a 10W (5V, 2A) charger in the box. Technically, it is not a fast charger. The battery is enough for a day with moderate usage.

Storage

There are 3 variants of the smartphone. The base variant has 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage. Another variant has 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal storage. The top variant has 6 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage. Each variant has a dedicated micro-SD card slot. So, storage will not be an issue for you.

Software

The smartphone runs on Color OS based on Android 8.1. The Color OS is the custom user interface designed by Oppo. The user interface has a lot of features but it is also little complicated. So, if you a casual user (and have not used Color OS before), you might feel lost at the starting.

During the launch, the company did not talk about Android updates. So, we don’t know how many Android updates this smartphone will receive.

Audio

The audio output is good. The smartphone has only one speaker, but the speaker is loud. The audio output via headphone jack is also good. the company has given some software features to tweak the headphone audio output.

The camera is an important part of the smartphone, and generally, Oppo smartphones have good cameras. The Realme 1 is not different. Realme 1 has 13 MP rear camera which has a f/2.2 aperture.

It has an 8 MP front camera which has a f/2.2 aperture. The camera is capable of taking photos with bokeh effect.

You can shoot only 1080p videos from front and back (rear) cameras. So, you can’t shoot 4k videos from this smartphone.

Price

This is the most important part of the smartphone. Oppo has priced this smartphone aggressively. Realme 1 is an online-only (Amazon exclusive) product. The base variant (with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage) is priced at Rs 8,990. The 4 GB variant (with 64 GB internal storage) is priced at Rs 10,990. The 6 GB RAM variant (with 128 GB internal storage) is priced at Rs 13,990.

Cons

Every smartphone has some cons, this smartphone also has cons. The fingerprint sensor is not present on the smartphone. The LED notification light is also not present. The company has not specified (during launch) whether the screen is made up of Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail Glass or Normal Glass. The company is providing a screen protector in the retail package. So, it is possible that Normal Glass has been used, which makes it fragile (if not handle with care). The company has not provided a fast charger in the box.

The smartphone looks great. Oppo has priced at aggressively. Realme 1 is offering many features for the price. The smartphone is balanced. However, the physical fingerprint sensor is missing from the smartphone. The custom user interface (Color OS) is little complicated and has some bloatware. Also, Oppo is not very good at providing (Android) updates. If Oppo improves the updates scenario, this smartphone can be a beast.

So, it’s up to you. Check your needs and then decide whether this smartphone is for you or not.